Not knowing, just like other cases of being uncomfortable, is a great incentive for personal growth. Progress always comes at the point of resistance. Getting uncomfortable and willing to be uncertain, to not know, to ask questions, to err and to fail, is the best and only way to learn, grow, progress and move forward.

Coalition of Essential Schools fall forum:
"They shared belief that public education in our nation is absolutely vital to the preservation and advancement of our republic. Further, they knew that such an education required schools that were engaging, child centered, honored the work of teachers, and made students stand and deliver when it came time to show what they know."

Address: http://slideshare.net Slideshare's tag line is "Present Yourself" which sums up what this site is about. You can upload your PowerPoint presentations, Word document and Adobe PDG files to share publicly or privately. File formats that are supported are ppt, pps, pot, pptx, ppsx, potx, OpenOffice, and Keynote.

"Sticks and stones may break our bones, but words will last forever." This link will take you to my ScoopIt page where I've chosen a variety of works alluding to language and its effects, it's beauty, it's absurdity, and its possibilities.

The article Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning: A Meta-Analysis and Review of Online Learning Studies is a study undertaken at the behest of the U.S, Department of Education to evaluate online learning practices through a meta-analysis of research. It is intended for policy-makers, administrators and educators to use to make research based decisions on online learning and teacher preparation at the K-12 level.
The original plan was to have it completed by 2008, but there were so few rigorous studies available that they waited until 2010 to include more. In a search of the literature from 1994-2008, only 5 studies were found of sufficient rigor to measure effectiveness of online learning in K-12 students. The remaining 43 studies were for older learners, with most content being from the medical or health care field.
The lead author, Dr. Barbara Means, directs the Center for Technology in Learning at SRI International, an independent nonprofit research organization. Her focus is on the relationship between technology, education systems, and student learning.
Four research questions were addressed:
* How does the effectiveness of online learning compare with that of face-to-face instruction?
* Does supplementing face-to-face instruction with online instruction enhance learning?
* What practices are associated with more effective online learning?
* What conditions influence the effectiveness of online learning?
The findings that were most interesting to me were:
* Guiding questions provided to discussion groups influence the way students interact, but not the amount they learn.
* Learning is enhanced when students can manipulate media or reflect.
* Videos do not influence learning more than assigning homework, unless students can manipulate them.
* Online quizzes do not influence learning more than homework.
* Explicitly taught self-reflection, self-regulation and self

While the themes are limited, it gives you many of the same abilities as Microsoft's PowerPoint software application. It allows you to add videos, pictures, custom shapes and text boxes. Also, you can create notes and change the layouts of the presentation itself. It makes importing files simple and gives easy access to the presntation you create anywhere as long as you have a computer and internet connection. Along with all of this, you do not have to download any programs or applications to use, just log into the site and access your saved presentations. Though, PowerPoint definitely has more features, for its easy accessability and presentation creation tools, this is a great web application to use.

Create beautiful presentations, access them from anywhere, and share them with the world. With 280 Slides, there's no software to download and nothing to pay for - and when you're done building your presentation you can share it any way you like.

The value of formative assessment is reviewed. It pointed out the formative assessment is about clear learning targets and feedback to students that helps them learn more and engage in self-reflection about their learning. It is stated that formative assessment is the most important assessment practice.